Posts from Candy

It's a tradition in New York for me: I buy a bunch of Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters and nobody ever shows up. So what to do with the all the leftovers? This 7-layer dip takes your candy to a whole, new decadent level.

Last week we met Alexandra Whisnant, French-trained chocolatier and owner of the boutique chocolate company gâté comme des filles, when she taught us how to temper chocolate without a thermometer. This week, we'll learn how to hand dip creamy ganache fillings into our beautifully tempered chocolate. Like with the tempering process, Alexandra's hand dipped chocolate requires no special equipment, just your willingness to have fun and get your hands deliciously dirty!

As you eat your way through your Halloween candy stash, you might stumble onto a few Dum Dums, those ubiquitous little lollipops that have been around since 1924. And maybe you'll even have a Mystery Flavor pop, its wrapper covered in question marks — is it pineapple-banana? Cherry cola? What is Mystery Flavor?

Although I'm well into my 30s, my mom still sends a Halloween package each year. It usually includes candy corn, holiday M&M's, See's truffles (a California tradition) and a festive hand towel or candle. And while I'm not one to generally buy these sweets for myself at the store, I look forward to the package each year. Halloween, it seems, is an easy excuse for adults to sneak in a treat, too.

We are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood known for its excellent trick or treating opportunities, and our street is one of the most popular ones. Halloween is a blast, because we get to see loads of cute kids in costumes and they usually take all the candy, so we don't have leftovers. My own kids, of course, come home with their own haul, and we have to deal with it. (By "deal with it," I mean decide whether or not to make any rules about eating it and stop myself from binging while they're at school.) What are the options?

This is how you win friends: make them homemade peanut butter cups. Peanut butter plus chocolate is always a winning combo, of course, but peanut butter cups are really the ne plus ultra of what the duo can accomplish. Made from scratch, they seem almost magical — how did that creamy peanut butter filling get in there? But it's not magic! In fact, it's quite simple.

Boo! Spiders are taking over this Halloween! Don't be scared, these arachnids are the friendly, candy-loving sort and they'd love nothing better than to march across your buffet table and perch on the edge of your plate. So grab your sugar googly eyes and pick up some licorice — your Halloween is about to get crafty.

There may be some things more pleasurable than biting into a homemade marshmallow — one that is so fresh, it’s like nibbling on a cloud — but I can’t seem to think of any right now. Dunked in cocoa, gifted to a good friend, or secretly eaten too close to dinner, homemade marshmallows are a treat above all others.

We're excited to introduce you to Alexandra Whisnant, chocolatier and owner of a small, avant-garde chocolate company called gâté comme des filles ('spoiled like girls') located in Paris and the Bay Area. Next week she will show us how to hand dip chocolates — but before we dip, we need to understand how to temper. Alexandra's method for melting and tempering chocolate, which she learned at Le Cordon Bleu Paris and then perfected as a pastry cook at Chez Panisse, is unusual in that it doesn't rely on a thermometer.

I considered waiting until the holidays to share these salted tahini date caramels with you, but they are so swoon-worthy that I just had to post the recipe right now. Plus, if you can get your hands on caramel-like Barhi dates, which won't be in season for long, they will make these confections all the more special. I like to think of them as the heavenly offspring of caramels and halva, without the need for stirring a pot of bubbling hot sugar; in fact, they don't even contain any refined sugar, or flour, or dairy.